


And Time Enough

by callmecathy



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode tag for Beta, M/M, spoilers for 3x21
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 18:39:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1575539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmecathy/pseuds/callmecathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All his life, he has only ever been in love twice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Time Enough

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [And Time Enough (Chinese Translation)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2348510) by [lzqsk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lzqsk/pseuds/lzqsk)



> -"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough." -Rabindranath Tagore  
> \- In Beta, the timestamp indicated there was a five hour gap between Finch, Reese, and Shaw's conversation outside of Grace's home and the meeting on the bridge. These are the missing hours.  
> 

They drive aimlessly through darkened streets.

The car is stolen and in this part of the city there are few cameras, and in the backseat John slouches low with Finch while behind the wheel Shaw drives with a hat tugged past her forehead. Finch doubts precautions matter now. Even if Samaritan were tracking them, Decima has what they need to get what they want.

John's knee nudges his own, and Finch realizes they've both been waiting on him.

"Turn left," he says, and his voice sounds numb.

"Safe house?" John murmurs.

He nods.

"We should be trying to find them." Shaw's fingers twitch restlessly on the steering wheel. "We've got Root. Is there anything she _doesn't_ know?"

"If she knew where they've taken Grace she would have already told us," John says.

"Then wh--"

Finch stares past the windshield, and the car is stolen and whoever had had it before them has left the radio on. It crackles with static, like feedback from a faulty machine.

He is surprised Shaw seems to care about him (he's always surprised when people do) but he suspects he shouldn't be. For all that people are mysteries to him and she may claim she could be her own island, in the end they are not so different: outsiders cast away by a world they're trying to protect.

.

 

At the safe house John asks him for the key code. It takes him a moment to understand that he's the one supposed to answer.

Inside, they talk around him. Shaw says something about going to scope out the bridge and John tells her to stay out of sight, and then a door shuts and the air is stiller.

He is-- sitting. He's not sure he remembers how. John rustles about the kitchen and after a few minutes long legs sweep into view; something warm is pressed into his hands.

"It's tea. For shock," John says, and he is sitting across from him and his hands rest on Finch's knees.

Finch stares at the swirl of liquid, tinted strangely off the light and the hue of the cup, like a dull shade of red (or red-colored hair). "There was no trauma," he says.

"They threatened someone you care about. Threatened you. That's trauma, Finch."

Finch bolts upright, shoving the cup onto the closest surface as John's hands fall away.  "I have to--" He turns to the bookshelf behind him, to where a laptop lies hidden on the middle shelf. Flips open the lid. Stops. His fingers splay impotently across the keyboard.

This isn't something he can recode.

He knows what he has to do; there was never a question. He loves her still.

John stands at his shoulder, and if he were to lean back-- well, now the rise of John's knees are pressing into the undersides of his thighs and the curve of his spine is braced against the plane of John's chest.

"I have to go, you know," Finch says, and his voice has too much weight and mass against the quiet.

"I know."

He huffs a faint, rueful laugh. "I thought you'd argue with me."

"Would it change your mind if I did?"

"No." He feels John go taut. "You won't try to stop me," he says uncertainly.

"I respect your decisions." The tension drains and an odd shiver runs through his frame. For a second Finch is afraid he will shake apart. "Even when I don't like them."

Finch tucks himself against John and warm breath is spreading across the back of his neck and this is the safest he will ever feel. "How long--?"

"Five hours." John's fingers clench around the rise of Finch's hip and hold, too slight to be rough and too desperate to be gentle. "There are bedrooms down the hall." His hand dips beneath Finch's coat and underneath, his touch is asking.

There may be bedrooms down the hall but now they are pressed against a disused bookshelf and patience has never been either of their virtues and they are kissing.

Finch rucks their coats past their shoulders, and with those layers gone he palms the side of John's neck and runs his hands over an expanse of flesh while a knee nudges between Finch's thighs (and up, and up) and draws a gasp from his mouth.

.

 

There is a bedroom down the hall and now John's fingers lie in the grooves between Finch's ribs and the mattress is beneath them and their kisses are deeper and longer and softer. There is a fever-hot press of skin, and an urgency with which they move against each other, and when they come, orgasms muted, Finch grips too tightly to keep them from coming apart.

.

 

"Missed you," John mumbles, burying his head in the crook of Finch's neck.

Finch brushes John's hair from his eyes. He is a tangle of too-long limbs around him, and how they manage to fit together, Finch is not sure.

"Where were you?"

Finch absently cards his fingers through his hair. Pulled close, John smells of sweat and gunpowder and ozone, and it's so familiar it hurts. They've been together months now, but he's not sure they've ever really been apart.

"I had some loose ends to take care of." Will Ingram, and a few old friends and any who might come under Samaritan's searching eyes; the job offer for Grace in Italy was supposed to get her to safety. Was _supposed to--_ anguish batters him and his heart is pounding beneath his sternum and he has to check the instinctual heave of his breath.

John must feel it because he says, alarmed, "Harold?"

He lets John draw him closer.

All his life, he has only ever been in love twice.

"I knew you'd be alright," Finch says, hearing his own uncertainty. "You had Shaw. Root. It-- _She_ was watching. I knew you'd be looked after."

"Rather it was you." The words are muffled against Finch's skin.

He would like to think John would be alright without him. "I wanted to protect you. You're safer without me."

Those arms around him tighten.

"If there were any other options--"

" _Find_ another.

"You would be-- you'd be alright, wouldn't you?"

" _Finch,"_ John says, distraught.

Muscle ripples beneath his hands as he strokes down the dip between John's shoulder blades and the slope of his spine, and stubble drags along his jaw as he seeks out warm chapped lips that part against his own.

This is all the comfort he can give.

(His all, of course, is not enough, not when John is holding onto him with a desperation too tight to be gentle and somewhere not far away Grace is holding on when after every precaution he has taken, she's still in danger).

.

 

 

"Do you regret it?"

He lingers on the edge of sleep. The anger in John's voice draws him back, although he suspects he might not be its intended target. "Regret what?"

"Building it."

There was a time when he would have said no and there was a time when he had, but that was impossibly long ago.

"It's the reason I found you," he says, and that may not be the whole answer but it is the only wholly truthful one.

.

 

The blood on John's temple is dark and dry. He touches the gash and the bruises on his rib cage. "I'm sorry I got you into this."

The sheets slip as John shifts, giving way to an expanse of pale flesh that is marred from fighting other people's battles.

He stares. "When we started this I didn't realize... I did believe it would only ever be about saving lives."

"Not your fault, Harold."

"Of course it is."

Warm air gusts across his shoulders, followed by an exasperated breath.

"I'm sorry," he says helplessly.

John cants forward, nose bumping the hand Finch still has raised to his forehead, and kisses the inside of his wrist. For all that he does not deserve it, it seems like absolution.

.

 

 

His glasses are missing.

He shakes off the muzzy weight of sleep and eases onto his side, focusing on the sitting shape of shadows on one side of the bed. The clock is a senseless blur on the wall.

"Little after five," John says.

He hadn't even looked. He must be counting down. His hands move and silver glints off hatches of half-light coming through the curtains.

Finch touches his face where his glasses have left indents. "I know what you're doing," he tells him.

John is, unsurprisingly, unabashed. When he swings his legs onto the bed and rolls back towards Finch his mouth is curved into a smirk, if not a pale version.

"It won't work," Finch persists.

"No?" John passes him the glasses and they are warm from his hands.

It may not work, but it is good work. Finch can't discern a hint of the tracker they now contain. "They'll find it."

"You didn't."

"I wasn't expecting it. They will."

The last time John had planted a tracker in his glasses Finch hadn't realized until Root discarded them in front of New York's public library. As his trust has grown the routine of his bug sweeps has fallen and he's still getting used to navigating a relationship in which caring can be used as an advantage.

"Maybe," John allows, and there's an almost-smile there now. It is knowing. Finch is no great mystery to John, not anymore; the mystery is that he prefers it that way.

"You should put those on," John says.

He does, and it may not work but he recognizes them for what they are: a promise.

.

 

 

They stand under a spray of water and John advises and Finch does not say that the only advice that would matter is how to make sure she is safe.

"Whatever Decima wants from you. I'd rather they have it than you dead."

"Would you?" Finch says thoughtfully. " _One life_ to save many..."

"No. Not if it's yours."

.

 

"At least don't do anything stupid."

Finch shrugs on his coat. "That's a little pot and kettle, don't you think?"

John crosses the room and his lips press briefly to Finch's temple.

All his life, he has only ever been in love twice.

"Don't be reckless. Please."

"I'm not _you."_

 .

When they emerge Shaw is sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of dry cereal and an unnecessary number of firearms strewn around it. When she sees them, she is not surprised.

"What did you find, Miss Shaw?"

"Bridge is covered in surveillance. Could be snipers. Clean line of sight from every side, easy escape routes. It's all about the location, folks, and they know their real estate."

"You sound impressed, Shaw." John is at the stove and the sizzle of frying eggs fills the kitchen. Their crackle sounds like static (like a faulty machine).

"The competence of the guys sent to kill you is the sincerest measure of personal skill."

"I think it's 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'..."

Shaw rolls her eyes.

"There won't be any killing," Finch says automatically, and has to believe it. He takes the seat across from her and she glances at him, leans forward on her elbows.

"I found out plenty of things we could use. Nothing we can risk."

It's not a disappointment when he'd expected as much. "Thank you, Miss Shaw."

A plate slides across the counter towards him.

"I'm not hungry, Mr. Reese."

"You should eat." John stalks around the table, uncapping a water bottle. "Drink this. All of it." He does not say that this may be Finch's last chance in awhile, but it goes unsaid.

.

 

"Let me teach you how to use one of these."

"I'm fairly certain they won't allow me to bring a firearm, Miss Shaw."

She frowns at him. "You never know when they'll turn their backs. If you get the chance you need to know how to--"

He caps the now-empty water bottle. "No."

Samantha Shaw would hardly be where she is if she didn't have the market cornered on persistence. "At least let me show you how to get out of zip ties--"

Harold Finch would hardly be where he is if he didn't have the market cornered on obstinancy. "Thank you. But that won't be necessary."

He's done running.

.

 

 

They're ready to leave before six O'clock.

They're almost at the door before Finch's throat closes tight and he can't breathe.

"Excuse me," he manages, and barely makes it to the bedroom. He pushes the door shut and braces his back against the wood and then his hands are on his knees and there is a hard corner digging into the lowest part of his spine and his pulse thunders in his ears.

He breathes raggedly.

He is-- he is--

Fumbling fingers drag off the scarf girded round his neck and ease open the top of his shirt and loosen his tie. His air comes easier. He is alright. He leans his head back against the wall, breathes and closes his eyes. She'll be fine. He has to believe that, too.

When his pulse has calmed he looks down at his hands and they do not shake.

John is in the hall when he emerges, leaning against the wall with casual ease, but Finch knows better.

"You don't have to do this," John says.

"So you've been telling me."

"I won't stop." His smile flickers then fades. "Not until you're with Decima on the other side of the bridge."

John Reese's persistence and obstinacy just might rival them all.

 

 

(Later, on the bridge, John will tell him to stay alive, and that he's coming for him. Finch doesn't answer-- he's not one to grant false hope-- but he doesn't think it's false hope to believe John will be successful in his search. He has been before.

John, for all that he may say Finch found him, has proven the converse. This time should be no different.)

 

 

For now, Finch locks the door to the safe house with Shaw at his back and John warm at his side, and steps out into the dawn.


End file.
